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Recommendations based on The Woodlandersby Thomas Hardy
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Far From the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
A pastoral romance of love and redemption, set against the backdrop of 19th century rural England.
An ACE can be found here . Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three ... (Goodreads)
The Mayor of Casterbridge
by Thomas Hardy
A man sells his wife and daughter while drunk, then becomes a successful businessman and mayor, but his past haunts him.
At a country fair near Casterbridge in Wessex Michael Henchard, a 21-year-old hay-trusser, argues with his wife Susan. Drunk on rum-laced furmity he auctions her off, along with their baby daughter ... (Wikipedia)
The Return of the Native
by Thomas Hardy
A story of a man's ill-fated love, set against the wild landscape of rural England.
The novel takes place entirely in the environs of Egdon Heath , and, with the exception of the epilogue, Aftercourses , covers exactly a year and a day. The narrative begins on the evening of Guy ... (Wikipedia)
Mary Barton
by Elizabeth Gaskell
Social injustice and class divisions explored through the lens of a mill worker’s family.
The novel begins in Manchester, where we are introduced to the Bartons and the Wilsons, two working-class families. John Barton is a questioner of the distribution of wealth and the relations between ... (Wikipedia)
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
by Anne Brontë
An exploration of 19th-century gender roles, revealing a woman's struggle for independence.
The novel is divided into three volumes. Part One (Chapters 1 to 15): Gilbert Markham narrates how a mysterious widow, Mrs Helen Graham, arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby mansion. A source of ... (Wikipedia)
Little Dorrit
by Charles Dickens
A tale of injustice, exploring the social and economic inequalities of Victorian England.
The novel begins in Marseilles "thirty years ago" (c. 1826), with the notorious murderer Rigaud telling his prison cellmate John Baptist Cavalletto how he killed his wife, just prior to being ... (Wikipedia)
The Mill on the Floss
by George Eliot
A story of a young woman's struggle to reconcile her inner life with society's expectations.
Spanning a period of 10 to 15 years, the novel details the lives of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, siblings who grow up at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss. The mill is situated at the junction of the ... (Wikipedia)
Bleak House
by Charles Dickens
A social commentary on the English legal system, exploring themes of inequality, injustice and corruption.
Bleak House opens in the twilight of foggy London, where fog grips the city most densely in the Court of Chancery. The obscure case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, in which an inheritance is gradually ... (Goodreads)
Middlemarch
by George Eliot
A grand narrative of life in a small English town, exploring the lives of its inhabitants.
Middlemarch centres on the lives of residents of Middlemarch, a fictitious Midlands town, from 1829 onwards – the years up to the 1832 Reform Act . The narrative is variably considered to consist of ... (Wikipedia)
The Rainbow
by D.H. Lawrence
Exploration of sexuality, love, and relationships between men and women in early 20th century England.
Set in the rural Midlands of England, The Rainbow (1915) revolves around three generations of the Brangwens, a strong, vigorous family, deeply involved with the land. When Tom Brangwen marries a ... (Goodreads)
Dombey and Son
by Charles Dickens
A tale of loss, hardship, and redemption as a man learns to value family and relationships.
The story concerns Paul Dombey, the wealthy owner of the shipping company of the book's title, whose dream is to have a son to continue his business. The book begins when his son is born and Dombey's ... (Wikipedia)
Mansfield Park
by Jane Austen
Social satire exploring morality and class in 19th century England.
Fanny Price, at age ten, is sent from her impoverished home in Portsmouth to live as one of the family at Mansfield Park, the Northamptonshire country estate of her uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram. There ... (Wikipedia)
Sons and Lovers
by D.H. Lawrence
A young man's struggle between his loyalty to his family and his desire for independence.
The refined daughter of a "good old burgher family," Gertrude Coppard meets a rough-hewn miner, Walter Morel, at a Christmas dance and falls into a whirlwind romance characterised by physical ... (Wikipedia)
North and South
by Elizabeth Gaskell
A tale of two contrasting worlds, exploring the divisions of the industrial revolution.
Nineteen-year-old Margaret Hale has lived for almost 10 years in London with her cousin Edith and her wealthy Aunt Shaw, but when Edith marries Captain Lennox, Margaret happily returns home to the ... (Wikipedia)
Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, navigating the complexities of high society.
Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland is one of ten children of a country clergyman. Although a tomboy in her childhood, by the age of 17 she is "in training for a heroine" and is excessively fond of ... (Wikipedia)
A Passage to India
by E.M. Forster
Exploring imperial tensions between colonial India and Britain in the early 20th century.
A young British schoolmistress, Adela Quested, and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore, visit the fictional city of Chandrapore, British India . Adela is to decide if she wants to marry Mrs. Moore's son, ... (Wikipedia)
The Charterhouse of Parma
by Stendhal
A young Italian nobleman's adventures in a world of political intrigues and affairs of the heart.
The Charterhouse of Parma chronicles the adventures of the young Italian nobleman Fabrice del Dongo from his birth in 1798 to his death. Fabrice spends his early years in his family's castle on Lake ... (Wikipedia)
Of Human Bondage
by W. Somerset Maugham
A young man's struggles to find a sense of purpose, despite a series of catastrophic misfortunes.
The book begins with the death of Helen Carey, the much beloved mother of nine-year-old Philip Carey. Philip has a club foot and his father had died a few months before. Now orphaned, he is sent to ... (Wikipedia)
King Lear
by William Shakespeare
An aging king's descent into madness reveals the consequences of pride and vanity.
Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the ... (Goodreads)
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
A thrilling mystery of secrets and hidden identities, with a hero on a quest for the truth.
Walter Hartright, a young art teacher, encounters and gives directions to a mysterious and distressed woman dressed entirely in white, lost in London; he is later informed by policemen that she has ... (Wikipedia)
The Merchant of Venice
by William Shakespeare
A tale of justice, mercy, and revenge, a struggle between religious and secular law.
Bassanio, a young Venetian of noble rank, wishes to woo the beautiful and wealthy heiress Portia of Belmont. Having squandered his estate, he needs 3,000 ducats to subsidise his expenditures as a ... (Wikipedia)
Daniel Deronda
by George Eliot
Story of a man's struggle to reconcile his Jewish identity and the expectations of English society.
Daniel Deronda contains two main strains of plot, united by the title character. The novel begins in late August 1865 , with the meeting of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth in the fictional town ... (Wikipedia)
Three Men in a Boat
by Jerome K. Jerome
Three friends and a dog embark on a whimsical boat journey down the Thames, encountering unexpected adventures and mishaps.
A comic masterpiece that has never been out of print since it was first published in 1889, Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat includes an introduction and notes by Jeremy Lewis in Penguin ... (Goodreads)
The Moon and Sixpence
by W. Somerset Maugham
A man's pursuit of a life of art, challenging societal conventions and expectations.
The novel is written largely from the point of view of the narrator, a young, aspiring writer and playwright in London. Certain chapters entirely comprise accounts of events by other characters, ... (Wikipedia)
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
by Henry Fielding
A story of a young man's adventures and misadventures in pursuit of love and fortune.
The novel's events occupy eighteen books. The book opens with the narrator stating that the purpose of the novel will be to explore "human nature". The kindly and wealthy Squire Allworthy and his ... (Wikipedia)
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.
The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (Wikipedia)
Martin Eden
by Jack London
A young sailor's ambition for a better life leads him on a journey of self-improvement and exploration of the upper classes.
Living in Oakland at the beginning of the 20th century, Martin Eden struggles to rise above his destitute, proletarian circumstances through an intense and passionate pursuit of self-education, ... (Wikipedia)
Look Back in Anger
by John Osborne
A young man's disillusionment with post-war Britain and his stagnant marriage. A scathing critique of the British class system.
Electrifying in its urgency, cauterizing in its wit, this play blasted a gaping hole in the conventions of British drama. Jimmy Porter plays trumpet badly. He browbeats his flatmate, terrorizes his ... (Goodreads)
Gulliver's Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
by Jonathan Swift
A fanciful journey to lands of tiny people, giant people, talking horses, and other strange creatures.
The travel begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck ... (Wikipedia)
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
by Laurence Sterne
A satirical novel that follows the life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, a gentleman with a penchant for digressions and tangents.
»Wo ist der Mann von Geschmack, dessen Seele einen Sinn für die Launen des Genies, für Witz und Ironie, für attisches und britisches, cervantisches, rabelaissches und für yoricksches Salz hat und der ... (Goodreads)
